Liscard’s newest Councillor, Darren Dodd who won the previously Tory seat for Labour only last month, has taken an all-Wirral initiative to scupper suspected Tory plans to scrap free swimming. We are confident Seacombe residents, in particular, will want to support Darren’s excellent move as it directly affects our ward’s Guinea Gap Baths along with the other Wirral pools.

Darren said:

‘The Tory leader of Wirral, Cllr Geoff Green, has issued a press release saying the free swimming will continue in Wirral. This was met with delight from many people after the devastating news that David Cameron had scrapped the scheme earlier this month. Swimming has been free for Under 16s and Over 60s since March 2009 and was used more than 50,000 times in the first three months – one of the most used schemes in the country.

On closer inspection it seems that the Tories are not being straight with the people of Wirral and in reality they have only delayed making a decision about the future of free swimming until September – when it is expected they will scrap it.

I have today launched a campaign to keep Swimming free on Wirral and I have set up an online petition. We need to keep the pressure on the ConDem Council to keep swimming free for the thousands of people who use it!

Please sign the petition below and send it to anyone you think may be interested.’

But wait for it – that’s not all.Labour was recently contacted by unhappy Liscard residents who had dealt with no fewer than two Tory Councillors about a local high profile problem. Darren met the residents and now has two substantial petitions he will present to full Council next month. Watch this space – photographs and full story to follow.

Seacombe’s Councillors at last have a really hard working Councillor in next door Liscard. Let’s make it two Liscard Labour Councillors next May and three the year after!

It’s a sure thing this ConDem council, and its ConDem Collaboration Government are going to hit the people of East Wallasey – Seacombe and Liscard – with great economic brutality. Let’s make sure they are replaced.

With 14 or so millionaires in his cabinet is it any surprise that Cameron’s Tory Government, propped up by its Liberal crutch, is now taking from the poor to ensure the rich stay that way? It’s particularly interesting to observe the clever language being used in the subtle propaganda campaign.

‘We are all in this together’ – ‘We must all share the burden’ – ‘Hard but fair’ – and so on and so forth. But when we look at the huge international debt what does it consist of?

Is it your debt? Is it my debt?

Isn’t it the Bankers’ debt? And doesn’t it consist of entries in ledgers as distinct from debts of real money?

The Tories have always been ideologically antagonistic to any sort of real benefit for working people for the very simple reason that all things are paid for from the surpluses of industry. If a high proportion of the surplus goes to providing health care, pensions, good schooling, decent leisure facilities, and good living standards for the workers in society who produce the wealth then the portion of the surplus left for the bankers, the industrialists, and the other profit makers is that much lower.

So when all the dross is cut away isn’t that what the Tory/Liberal alliance is now about?

And where do Wirral’s Liberals stand in this mess? Incredibly, they have chosen to prop up the Wirral Tories. And Wirral Tories, when they are not fantasising about being Cuban Marxists*** are preparing themselves to carry out the assault on Wirral services and jobs demanded by the Con-Dem national coalition government.

It can’t last can it? We await with interest the first breaks from within the Liberal wing of the Wirral Collaboration. When those Wirral Liberals who see their chances of ever being re-elected fading rapidly away will they want to see it through with the Tories they have always thought of as their most absolute enemies? Interesting times?

***Truth is stranger than fiction – but regular readers of these pages know all about that. Newer readers, please check our ‘older entries’ for regular reports from one Wallasey Tory about how his partyh are inspired by Fidel Castro’s and Che Guevara’s revolution. You really couldn’t make it up – but there it is!

Following last night’s Cabinet meeting. Cllr Phil Davies Deputy Leader of the Labour Group said:

Wirral's Labour Group Leader Cllr Phil Davies condemns the collaborating Con-Dems as they implement savage Tory/Liberal Government's cuts on the people of Wirral

Cllr Green is fiddling while Wirral burns. As long as he chases cheap headlines and bats all the issues into the long grass the crisis will continue to deepen. Every month that goes by without decisions increases the risk that Council workers will lose their jobs, and residents their services, not because of the financial crisis, but because the incompetence of local politicians has dramatically increased the scale of cuts necessary. He will literally have talked us into disaster.

It’s time to get real. He still has £4m to find of in year revenue savings. On current projected figures he has another £24.4m to find by March 2011 and an additional £57m to find over the following two years. On a pro rata basis that means that next year alone, amongst other things, nearly £8m has to be cut from Adult Social Services, over £6m from Children’s Services, over £2m from Cultural Services, nearly £2m from Housing and Regeneration and over two million from Technical Services (covering highway maintenance, traffic schemes, bin collections etc.)

If anyone thinks this can be achieved without affecting front line services, and without disproportionately affecting the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community, they are kidding themselves. The bad conscience suffered by Wirral’s Liberal Democrats over the national increase in VAT, which they campaigned vigorously against in the national election because it affected the poor most, will pale into insignificance when they see the real, harsh consequences locally of their own government’s decisions played out across Wirral by their own joint administration.

That’s assuming, of course, that this administration is capable of reaching any decisions in time to set a legal budget. Jeff, it is time for you to do what Labour has done for the last 15 years. Accept the responsibility of Leadership. YOUR government has imposed massive cuts upon us – YOU DEAL WITH THEM.”

What did we see? No less than eight different reviews announced, all delaying any decisions. (One of those reviews actually sent back to the starting blocks, under totally unnecessary new management, an existing programme of change which would potentially have delivered up to £15m of savings towards his target!) An absurd and paralysing increase in pointless bureaucracy as he attempts to micro-manage an £865million Council budget down to the last £100. And cuts in sandwiches. Even that wasn’t costed – presumably because it saves so little that the amount would look ridiculous. This is ideology gone mad.

“Cllr Green is way out of his depth in this crisis. It is painful to watch him dithering and floundering around trying to work out what to do. Given the scale of the financial challenge now facing the Council, courtesy of his government, we expected to see, at the least, a list of costed options for savings which would give the Council a good start towards reaching its target.

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